Faced with a rise in violence and an increase in homicides, the Chilean national prosecutor’s office is pointing the finger at foreigners. From now on, prosecutors will demand systematic preventive detention for undocumented foreigners arrested by the police.
The left-wing Chilean government led by Gabriel Boric, for whom the security issue was not a priority, had to review its agenda. In Chile, 85% of people believe that insecurity has increased in the country between April 2022 and April 2023. According to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior, violent robberies and homicides are indeed on the increase.
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25% of the accused in Chile are foreigners
For several months now, the population has been worried about these repeated episodes of violence. On television and on social networks, videos come out regularly, where we hear, for example, gunshots and see attackers fleeing during a robbery in a shopping center. Nationally, there is also an increase in the number of homicides.
“Homicides are concentrated in neighborhoods where there is economic deterioration. Historically, it was committed with knives, but the use of firearms has increased by approximately 40% in Chile.”
Claudio Gonzalez, public security specialist at the Faculty of Government of the University of Chileat franceinfo
In recent weeks, the tension has risen a notch with the death of three police officers, in less than a month, killed in the exercise of their function. For two of them, the main suspects are of foreign nationality.
The national prosecutor’s office announced a new process a few days ago that is causing debate. In Santiago, prosecutors will now demand systematic preventive detention for undocumented foreigners arrested by the police. Because, according to the institution, 25% of the accused in Chile are foreigners and half have no papers, which, according to the prosecutors, complicates their identification as well as the legal proceedings.
Risk of xenophobic drifts
For some years, Chile is facing a massive influx of migrants, and this has consequences. Claudio Gonzalez, specialist in public security at the Faculty of Government of the University of Chile, points in particular to the lack of regulation and border control. “It allowed a lot of criminals to enter Chile undetected by the system.” he explains, before specifying that“It would still be irresponsible to speak of a direct link between crime and immigration, because it is the path to xenophobia and we are very close to it”.
The government, very low in the polls, had to review its priorities: it announced a whole battery of measures to fight crime. And the president has also enacted a law that establishes the presumption of self-defense for law enforcement, which is already worrying some human rights organizations.